Letter: Now is the time to act over NHS

May I express my appreciation of treatment I received at James Cook Hospital?

I developed floaters in my left eye and arrived at Eye Casualty at about 11am.

The reception staff and the triage nurse were very helpful and friendly and explained clearly what was happening.

I saw the doctor after about two hours and he explained that, to repair a tear in the retina, I would need laser surgery, which he performed half an hour later. I left the hospital by 2pm.

This was the NHS at its best, but it is under threat nationally.

Many of your readers will be familiar with the symptoms of the current crisis in healthcare, such as long waits in A&E, cancelled operations and rationing of hip replacements to those in agonising pain.

The latest regional plans for the NHS (sustainability and transformation plans) are meant to ensure more planning at local level, better co-ordination with social care provision and new models of primary care, all of which is supposed to save millions of pounds and balance the NHS budget by 2020.

The draft that includes Whitby does not explain how these savings can be made, which means that the result will be large cuts in local services, unless there is a serious increase in spending on the NHS.

The government is in denial about this, so if we want to keep the comprehensive health service that we all rely on, now is the time to write to our MP Robert Goodwill to ask him to press the government to make investment in the NHS its number one priority.